Former Sierra Leone Army (Ex-SLA) combatants demanding improved living conditions and the payment of salary arrears, rioted on Monday at the Lungi demobilisation camp north of Freetown, media and other sources reported.
Reports said that the inmates looted a local market and businesses, demanded food, medicine and money and complained they had not received their entitlements.
ECOMOG spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Chris Olukolade told IRIN the disturbance began during an entitlement-qualifying procedure at the camp with which some of the over 1,000 inmates disagreed.
The exact number of rioters was not clear, there were no reports of casualties and the situation was brought under control after about three hours, Olukolade said. Chief of Defence Staff, General Maxwell Khobe and Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) Brigadier Gabriel Mani were expected to address combatants on Wednesday, he added.
The AFRC was the military junta that ruled Sierra Leone from May 1997 to February 1998 in alliance with the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). The AFRC/RUF and soldiers loyal to it, the ex-SLA, took to the bush when ECOMOG peacekeepers ousted the junta.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
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